Hey Kevin, first let me say thank you for jumping in the competition with both feet. I would have to echo what Orlando and Alex said. Perhaps a bit too much reverb and a focus on the higher end leaves the bottom end a little light for my tastes. Some of the stems in this one had quite a bit of reverb on them (the acoustic guitars), so it is easy to muddy things up with them.

As Orlando stated, it isn't about winning, but about trying something different and seeing what happens. For this to be only your second attempt at mixing and mastering, I would say you did really well. It truly is an artform in itself, and something that all of us struggle with on a daily basis. I think overall you did a good job considering the many challenges this track presented. Well done my friend. I hope all is well.

hi LSD, I do not think that there's really something to improve there. Your version is just different from the SBM one. You're giving only more priority to the piano (which I like) in the first part, to the waves and FX (too bad with the guitars) in the interlude. The last part (and also the very last one) sounds quite spacey and dreamy with a lot of reverb provided from the original samples... But there's far too much reverb added there so you have to simply cut up the recording like this at the end instead of just let the sounds melt away naturally...
hope its useful,
Alex

Hello Kevin...first I have to say it's great you have decided to join the competition and I think all this is not so much about winning or being the best in town, but more about learning and improving mixing and mastering skills through exchanging views, ideas and experiences of fellow Loopermates and at the end of the day it's also about simply having fun.:)
You're asking what you're doing wrong...as a complete amateur myself (you can also call me noob, hehe)I just don't feel competent to tell you whether you're doing something wrong or right...I can only tell what my ears and senses tell me, or how I percieve your take on this task...
I must say the beginning is very promissing...clear and bright sounding piano impresses me, as well as just the right amount of reverb... but the transition to acoustic guitars is frankly quite messy and it's probably the most questionable part on the entire track (at the same time I envy you exactly that part cause I wouldn't know how to do it mysef even if I wanted to...lol)...For the rest of the track I would say there's too much emphasis on higher frequency range on one side and obvious lack of lower range on the other, which is even more evident in the third movement. Despite aforementioned shortcomings I still consider this as a clean mix in it's own way and I can only
congratulate you for making your own contribution to this contest.:)

Thank you for the great reply. To be completely honest with you this is actually the second song that I have actually mixed and mastered so I guess I am on the right track. Thank you for letting me know about the low end lacking. On the tiny monitors that i'm using at my house to master its almost impossible to even hear the bass when i'm mixing, even with volume all the way up on the monitors. I think I lacked because I have realized that when I can hear the bass really nicely on my monitors that means its way to high for almost every other sound system lol. I do the make a master and burn it to a cd and listen to it in the car deal because I really am working with junkie monitors. My aim was to bring out more of the high end of this track because that is where I thought most of the life was in this track. I also think that my transition to the acoustic guitars really does suck I think I added way to much reverb and it kind of mudded up that whole transition. anyway Thank you a lot for the reply man !

You might also like these tracks

Description : HEY, hey guys...IM BACK! and it feels amazing. I took a month or so off to work thru some shit, and in that time i bring you this. Personally my best work so far imo. I may add lyrics to it eventually, but not sure yet. The original has a longer beginning for that reason. Thanks to chanho17 for uploading great piano loops for use. let me know what you think!

Description : First off, I am a huge fan of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Hobbit." After watching all of the movies (including the final chapter of the Hobbit", I was motivated to write something that I thought might work with their journey home.

Samplitude has a couple of great new VST's, one called "World Flutes" and the other "Celtic Harp" and I used both of them in this song. I created every last note on this one. Guitars were all Fenders, soft synths besides the Samplitude items mentioned previously were created in the SynthMaster series by KVR, and the strings were created with Samplitude's "String Ensemble."

Not sure about the mix (my hearing is shot), so most of the mixing is done by sight instead of listening. If you hear something way out of whack, let me know. If you are interested in taking this one further, let me know and I'll post a link to the stems. Thanks to the Hobbit for the inspiration and to you for listening.

EDIT: I've had some requests for the individual instrument stems so here is the link to all of those files. The tempo is 80bpm. Feel free to do whatever you want with this one.

Description : Hey everyone, here is a quick cinematic track I created. This one was not made with any particular project in mind. But, I definitely may use in the future. If you have any criticism at all or would like to use this in one your projects be sure to leave a comment below. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Description : Ok...here it is! Another colab with maestro Tumbleweed! Ed provided the unfinished, basic track...I composed and recorded the long intro using different synths and then added piano (well to the fore) and some brass arrangements along the rest of the track (no violin this time...hehe) and then did the final mixing to wrap it up as it is presented now. I hope you will enjoy it and we both appreciate your listening time and your valuable comments:) Otherwise all thanks to Ed!

Description : 100 seconds recital pianO for thinking to deaf people ...
excuse me for quality ..in fact thi is an old trial of mine and written by Final 2004 ! .
dedicated to all deaf humans whom can't hear this .

Description : Guy’s this is sound track I have created for a friend who is a documentary film maker.
The film is about the distraction of Earth neutral beauty and creating concrete jungles in its place. It was really sad to see so I came up with this track.
Majority of it done with minor keys to reflect the sadness I hope you all like it.

Description : a 277 second cinematic about human wars...
I know its a lot for a 17 years old boy to think about this type of things, but its me, and it cant be changed...
lemme tell you about story of the music...
first it starts from WorldWar2, one of the most sadly years for human. then after the war, you can see people are happy, kids are playing, but after some years, you can see the world is getting ready for the WorldWar3 and then you can hear the rest of the story in music...

Description : I had no particular intention doing this, but then it just came on me out of nowhere....How to make an antithesis Halloween work!? Prior to that there were no plans to make a track for the occasion, furthermore I've never been really interested in such a thing. It always seemed a bit silly to me if not outright childish. But then I remembered the Interview with The Vampire and Bram Stoker's Dracula. My gosh, there was some peculiar romanticism in there and I probably don't have to tell you twice that this must be a bait for Orlando, as is a cup of fresh young blood for a vampire...:) Furthermore I like people who are different, so I just have to like vampires who a different as well...hehe...so it should be dawning on you by now that this won't be your standard Halloween tune...haven't I mentioned "antithesis"? So...no growling zombies, midnight cemetery bells, creaking doors or any of your favourite horror sounds, although it's still a little bit darker in tone...hell yeah, vampires are still vampires...haha...but this one is mainly about a vampire desperately in love with a young lady, craving for her as a madman...I won't tell whether she's also a vampire or not, cause you might figure it out listening to the track...^^ Otherwise it was about time for me to come up with a new solo work, since I've been almost exclusively doing collabs in those past few months (which I love ofcourse)...afteral you can always ask Ed...:)^^____Happy Halloween folks!:)

Description : No more singing now...haha! So what comes next?
I belong to the nation which has a great passion for alpinism (not myself though)..:) This newly composed and recorded stuff is dedicated to all of those who stayed in the grip of Himalaya forever!...Respect!

Description : As first, just forget about the genre...I had to put something, didn't I?:) Otherwise this is something like enjoying sunshine, but to make the feeling a bit more complicated is also about not wanting to have it directly in my face...hehe...